My Unkissed Self
by AYUMU10
Summary: The expression “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed” was too close to reality for me during my third year of highschool.Technically, I did not qualify for that label because of one unexpected lip lock at overnight camp with a boy I hardly knew and... NXM


**Author's Note:** I got this story from the book "Chocolate for a teen's spirit". I just wanna share it with you guys...

The expression "Sweet sixteen and never been kissed" was too close to reality for me during my third year of highschool.Technically, I did not qualify for that label because of one unexpected lip lock at overnight camp with a boy I hardly knew and, worse, didn't want to know. Deep down, though, I still feel unkissed. My teenage intuition told me that a kiss should have an emotional component, and mine did not.

Each time one of my girlfriends went out on a date, I felt jealous and confused. What was wrong with me? I talked and laughed with a lot of boys in my classes. I was reasonably smart, but not so smart as to be intimidating. And I was at least as attractive as my friends were, in a late-sixties, straightened my hair, padded my bra sort of way

Why did the boys notice me enough to talk to me at school, but not enough to phone me for a date? So I read romance novels, memorized lines from the film Romeo and The Chicken, and babysat on Saturday nights, fantasizing about the day when the real kiss would happen.

By the time I was seventeen-year-old high-school senior, I had lost all hope of finding a date from among the boys in my school. I seriously questioned the existence of another boy anywhere in the universe who would ever kiss me.

I had first met Natsume in junior high. As above-average students, we were in and out of classes together throughout the next five years. Then as seniors, we ended up seated beside each other in calculus. I had always done badly in math, but this subject was giving me more trouble. Eventually we became study partners, which led to several phone calls each week.

Over a period of months, we started discussing other things about our lives once we'd finished the math problems. I found out that he was a rock Vocalist. And that he dreamed of visiting every country in the world. I'd had similar dreams myself. Our conversation became more and more important to me, but I tempered my excitement with the knowledge that he was only calling me because of homework.

One Monday after we'd finished the "math" portion of our call, he asked what I was doing on Friday night. My typical Friday evening consisted of reading, watching TV, or talking on the phone to my only other girlfriend who didn't date. He wanted to take me to a movie: a French film showing at a small local theatre. I said great, and he'd let me know later in the week about the time.

As soon as we hung up, I ran straight to my room and collapsed onto the bed. I rolled around in small convulsions of tears and laughter. Quietly, though, because I didn't want to alert my family. I wasn't going to tell anyone yet. Not even my best friend Hotaru. What if I had imagined the entire conversation? I was still haunted by an incident during junior high school that had made me doubt my ability to hear what boys were saying to me. Azuma, a cute redhead from my seventh-grade science class with whom I had been flirting, suddenly blurted out,"Wanna go steady?" The next day, he acted like nothing happened. In fact, I don't we spoke to each other ever again. As I reflected on the experience years later, I could not recall my response to his proposal. Had I said yes, or had I run screaming from the room? Either way, it reinforced my opinion that males could act interested in me one minute and totally erase me from their life the next.

I fought to keep a lid on my anxiety, while telling myself that given everything Natsume had shared with me, he couldn't back out now. That got me through Tuesday. By Wednesday, when he hadn't brought up the subject of the movie, I began to panic. I knew his invitation had been real, but I was too terrified to mention it in class. I phoned Hotaru and spilled the whole story, swearing her to secrecy. She said he'd probably finalized the date the next day; I didn't know if I'd live to the next day. I did, and her prediction came true.

At the movies on Friday evening, Natsume and I sat shoulder to shoulder, with the occasional knee brushing against knee. He held my hand intermittently, letting go when it felt too sweaty and then shifting his arm around the back of my seat. All of this touching and near touching distracted me from reading the subtitles. Even if it hadn't been in French, I could not follow the film's plot because I was too focused on our post movie plot possibilities. _I wondered, how will this end up? Will we kiss on my doorstep? Or something more than that?_

Afterwards he asked if I needed to go straight home in his usual rudeness. I said I didn't, so he drove to a secluded spot and we got out of the car to look at the constellations. The early spring night was cold and damp; we could see our breath. He pulled me close and we kissed. I felt warm inside and leaned in for more.

Two hours later, I lay in bed replaying each detail of the evening, fingertips at my face, lightly tracing the lips that were no longer mine. My unkissed self was a different girl now--a kissed girl--and I knew that the greatest adventures in my life was just beginning. Still I felt something at the back of my mind telling me that I've already felt that same feeling back then when we were kissing, impossible. It was just my second time kissing a guy; the first one was when I was still young.

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